Kevin Perea – Final Reflection

Hello readers!

Thank you for reading my collection of writing that I have compiled throughout my semester! Every piece of writing here was written with careful thought and pride. I refuse to submit a piece that I wasn’t satisfied with, and I hope that mentality makes for entertaining reads!

My name is Kevin Perea. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to two Mexican parents. They’re like, the cool parents if you will. I also have a badass older sister, a creative and funny younger brother, and three little sisters that will inevitably be the end of me. My dog Chico is also the best, but he kind of sucks at being a dog; preferring to lay down and stare into space than literally anything else.

Maybe I’m being dramatic, but this year and this semester has been a time of serious reflection. After the disaster of a year that was 2020, I aimed to make 2021 a great year for me. I finally started taking deeper, more hands-on classes in the Entertainment Technology department. I also started a new job just before the semester began, and generally just trying to make up for lots of inactivity during the pandemic.

A class I’ve always enjoyed throughout my academic career is English. Reading and writing has always been fun for me, but it wasn’t until my English Composition I class here at City Tech that it really embedded itself into my brain. However, midway through the Spring 2020 semester, the entire world began a seismic shift that has and will continue to change the world. To keep everyone safe, City Tech and schools around the world had to change the way they operated.

Throughout it all though, I had my English classes keeping my creative juices flowing. Writing fiction and non-fiction pieces was a way of expressing myself; something I desperately needed during the difficult century known as 2020. I did find it difficult to keep up sometimes but seeing the praise that I received for my pieces was something that motivated me and genuinely made me happy.

As I was registering for my Fall 2021 classes, I realized I only needed one more common core class to be finished with my general education courses. I’ve been on such a roll, and it was something I truly enjoyed and wanted to explore more. I had to take the creative writing class!

Most of my English classes that I took consisted of reading a piece and analyzing it. Then writing down my findings and my opinions. While dissecting great writing is fun, what I really wanted to do was create something of my own. It was something I dabbled in, but this class really let me say what I wanted.

My three favorite sections of this class were the memoirs, short stories, and poetry. Memoirs let me tell stories from my own life while the short stories let my imagination free. Poetry was a fun blend of the two.

For my memoirs, I wrote one heartfelt, warm story about my love for all things comic books and superheroes. The other piece was a wild, comedic tale of my time working at Times Square. I went in very different directions with these two. Travelling through memory lane is always fun, and writing a more heartfelt, nostalgic piece like the “Meet My Comic Books” piece was interesting in this time of personal reflection. This piece may rank as my top favorite this semester. I loved showing out my geeky side while incorporating family history and memories and stories and characters that have affected me in many ways from my personal values to my decision to study entertainment technology! I loved how I was able to illustrate who I am through more unconventional means. It ultimately led me to appreciate comic books more and to cherish the times I have with my family. My second memoir about my time at McDonald’s was very fun to write about. In my normal day-to-day life, I like being the funny guy. Making people laugh gives a certain satisfaction that I love. Plus, it’s never a bad thing to make people feel happy. Another of my favorite works, I tried reflecting the crazy and wild idea of the whole situation through words. I hadn’t really written a funny story before, but I’ve always wanted to try writing comedy, so I took the chance and wrote about a crazy story I had that took place during a crazy time.

The short stories assignments and exercises were probably the most interesting of the semester. The challenge in writing memoirs is telling a story in an entertaining way and through words without facial expressions or hand gestures that might drive the point home. But creating an entire narrative from scratch is a different story. For the first story, I basically just pulled names and locations I knew. Gerald is an old friend. Linda seems like a common name for elderly women. And Borough Hall and Cadman Plaza are places I grew up going to a lot. I remember from my Intro to Lit class last semester that describing your character physically and mentally is important to make a more fleshed out personality. I think I was able to do that with Gerald. The second short story, inspired by Image C from our writing exercise, was another top contender for my favorite piece. For this one, I truly let my creativity run wild. As a huge superhero geek, I borrowed from multiple of my favorite comic book characters. I took the abilities and intellect of a Tony Stark, the family, financial, and teenage problems of a Peter Parker and paired our character with a powerful world leader similar to a Lex Luthor. I put them in a compelling story that easily defined the hero, our hard-working, down on their luck hero, and the villain, the powerful, rich man that isn’t held accountable. Comic books 101. Writing something similar to what I love reading the most was the most fun I’ve had writing something.

Last but not the least was our poetry. Initially, I had a little trouble starting this. We use the word “poetic” to describe something powerful and meaningful. When something is poetic, it’s effortlessly beautiful. So, I wanted to write something that could make readers feel something. Without being cheesy. I could try to sound like Shakespeare with flowing rhymes and fancy words, but what makes poetry so good is that it’s a way to truly express yourself as you are. That’s why I skipped trying to rhyme or be super eloquent as I might try to be for other assignments. I wrote it almost as if I was saying it. That, along with writing about how I genuinely felt about my upbringing, my life, my accomplishments and even my dog, offered a small bit of perspective in my life that I haven’t really told through writing before.

Creative writing class here in City Tech was a very enjoyable one and one of my favorite liberal arts classes that I’ve taken. Not only has it made me a better reader and writer, but it also allowed me to reflect on myself on a human level. I always found myself to be better at expressing myself through writing than through words, and all the assignments and exercises let me release some of my thoughts onto another medium rather than have it swarm my brain all the time.

I’m thankful and proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in this class. Simply put, the following short stories, memoirs and poems were ideas, messages, and hopes that I had clogging my mind. Struggles, hopes, dreams, inconveniences, or simply silly ideas, putting them down into writing was almost therapeutic, especially after one of the toughest times in human and my personal history. So, thank you for taking the time to read my work. I truly believe this is some of my best work because it is some of the realest things I’ve written.

Thank you!

Kevin Perea